Japanese activist start their own protests about the Taiji dolphin slaughter.

Tokyo says no to dolphin hunts:

On January 29, several Japanese activists assembled outside the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Tokyo to protest the killing and capture of dolphins. The demonstration was intentionally timed to coincide with staff getting off work for the day. (See photo above – SAV)

Despite plummeting temperatures, for about 90 minutes, people called for an end to the dolphin hunts. Some held up signs, calling for the release of Ric O’Barry.

Dolphins urgently need protection from further devastation caused by the dolphin drive hunting in Taiji Japan, dolphin slaughter and captive trade. President, CEO and Councillors of Broome Shire, your country is a member of the United Nations; The UN condemns Taiji Japan’s dolphin hunts. Australia also supports local and international efforts to protect dolphins and whales. It is unacceptable to continue as sister city to Taiji. Suspend the relationship and help save dolphins from future hunting seasons. Send Taiji a strong message so the people understand how their cruel business of dolphin drive hunting, slaughter and live capture is unacceptable and must stop now.

While we acknowledge Broome’s historic and emotional ties with Taiji, these cannot hold precedence over such atrocities against these intelligent, bonded and social mammals, who are not only loved by millions of people around the world but extremely vital to healthy ocean biodiversity.

Taiji’s overall business and financial security is not contingent on the continuation of the dolphin slaughter; while approximately 50 hunters participate in the drive hunts, there are approximately 300 fishermen who catch only fish. It is 100% viable for the dolphin hunters to change their activity, attract visitors to see dolphins by tourist boat all year round.

During the hunts, entire dolphin pods (sometimes more than one pod at a time), are driven beyond their limits to exhaustion, and captured in Taiji Cove. Weather permitting, the hunters set out in the boats every day, from September through to March each year. They decimate whole pods, discarding young dolphins, babies at sea with no hope of survival. Doing so reduces the hunters’ quota count, allowing them to later count larger dolphins during captures.

The captured dolphins experience unimaginable horror and heartbreaking ends, witnessing one another’s fate as all are brutally slaughtered. Those poor dolphins selected for a short life-time in captivity, by dolphin trainers in the cove, witness all of this. Researchers are forbidden from recording the dolphins’ screams. Agonizing death can take more than ten minutes.

Dolphins are kept captive in small sea-pens in Taiji and immediately must learn to eat dead fish by hand or starve. Trained for months there they are later sold for large sums to marine parks, resorts and other places keeping dolphins captive around the world for display to paying public, US$150,000 – US $200,000 and more. These closely bonded, empathetic, social and incredibly intelligent dolphins are either some, kept for the captive industry, or most, brutally slaughtered in the most horrific way. This whole business is driven by the pursuit of money made from entertaining paying crowds who are largely unaware of the ongoing tragedy behind the dolphin shows.

Given what we know of the high intelligence of dolphins, this slaughter is comparable to murder and to keep them in captivity is utterly cruel. The Indian Government recently acknowledged dolphins as non-human persons; there it is now forbidden to keep them in captivity or interfere at all. In Taiji Japan’s Whale Museum, dolphins are kept in abhorrent conditions, including Angel a beautiful albino dolphin torn from her mother, captured in the hunts while her family was killed.

Dolphins need and deserve the right to protection from human harm and interference. It is unacceptable for Broome Australia to have a sister city relationship with Taiji Japan, as long as the dolphin drive hunts continue. Suspend your sister city relationship with Taiji. Send Taiji a strong message so the people understand how their cruel business of dolphin drive hunting, slaughter and live capture is unacceptable and must stop now.

Goal: Seek maximum possible punishment against person who tied a wire around a cat’s neck and bludgeoned it to death.

A cat was recently found in the cold after someone twisted a wire tightly around its neck and left it for dead. The calico cat, named Faith by rescue workers, had several lacerations on its head when it was brought to Heavenly Paws Animal Shelter in York County, Pennsylvania for veterinary attention. Faith’s injuries were treated, and a round of antibiotics started before she was allowed to return home with a foster care volunteer.

Over the course of only a few hours, Faith’s condition deteriorated significantly. She began to pace in circles and bump into furniture, showing signs of severe brain trauma. By the time a veterinarian was able to see her, the cat was pronounced brain dead and had to be euthanized.

A necropsy revealed that the cat had a fractured skull and three distinct areas of blunt force trauma. Veterinarians suspect that the blows were caused by a hammer, and that the wire was used to hold the cat in place while someone bludgeoned it. Aside from the obvious signs of abuse, the cat was in otherwise good health, suggesting to investigators that it was someone’s pet.

This crime demonstrates extreme cruelty and is a shock to the entire community of Hanover. In order to ensure that Faith receives justice, it is important that the person responsible is punished to the fullest extent of the law. Sign the petition below to demand a harsh punishment for the person responsible, which will help deter similar crimes in the future.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Officer Lawrence,

A calico cat named Faith was recently found in the cold with a wire wound tightly around its neck. After receiving veterinary care for its wounds, Faith’s health deteriorated quickly due to brain injuries, and she was put down the next day. A necropsy found that the cat suffered blunt force trauma as well as a skull fracture, likely due to blows to the head from a hammer.

This shocking crime shows extreme cruelty toward animals and should be punished to the full extent of the law. We, the undersigned, ask that you work to bring justice to this cat by finding the person responsible and seeking out the harshest possible punishments against them.

Help Us Set Japik Free

Japik the orangutan spent two long years chained to a tree with nothing but a narrow wooden plank to sit on and no shelter from the hot sun or driving rain. When our team arrived to rescue her all they could see on the plank was a pile of old rags. Or so they thought…

In fact that “pile of old rags” was Japik trying to shelter from the torrential rain under an old jacket. This is how Heribertus, a member of the rescue team, described her:

“Japik was placed beside a tree behind the house, without shelter or a roof to protect her from sun or rain. When we arrived it was raining heavily and she was trying to take cover under an old jacket. We could see that the jacket was soaked through and Japik was cold and shivering. Her neck was also chained and the chain was nailed to the tree. The chain was very short so Japik could go nowhere. The ground under the plank where she was sitting was covered in rubbish.”

Japik was constantly shifting her weight from side to side, perhaps to keep her balance on the slippery plank or to ease the pain of her aching limbs. After two years on the end of that short chain it’s a miracle she could move at all.

Japik’s owner finally realised that it was illegal to keep an orangutan as a pet and decided to surrender her into our care. The minute we knew of her existence, our team set off to rescue her and bring her misery to an end.

As our vet Cha Chaapproached Japik, the desperate orangutan reached out to her. It was as though she realised that after suffering so much misery and neglect, help was finally at hand.

Our team immediately took action to free Japik from the tree and remove the chain from her neck. It was so heavy and had been fixed so tightly that there was a deep wound under her chin – had she been left there much longer it would have cut right through her skin.

I can’t begin to imagine how Japik endured those years alone on that narrow plank of wood, cast aside and forgotten like the rubbish on the ground around her. Japik is only four or five years old and should still be living with her mother. She must have been so lonely chained up alone without her.

When Argitoe, the head of our rescue team, took her hand to guide her to the transport crate, her legs were so weak that they shook as she walked.

Japik is in the safe hands of our veterinary team at the centre in Ketapang, West Borneo her recovery and rehabilitation can begin.

But after two years living on scraps of waste food, deprived of all the nutrition that is vital to the physical development of a young orangutan, it hasn’t yet been determined whether any permanent damage has been done to her health. But our expert team will be doing all they can in the months and years ahead to help Japik develop the strength and the skills she will need to survive in the wild. Please contribute to her care today and help us set her free.

Our immediate priority is to check her for any ailments or diseases while she is in quarantine and work to improve her overall health and wellbeing. Having lived for so long in such shocking conditions, we’re amazed that she’s even alive. Let’s hope this means she has a strong constitution and an equally strong will to survive.

Well today is the 28/1, and it marks us posting no less than 50 items on the site this month – which most be something of a top month for us since our foundation all those years ago.

Between the 1st and 5th next month (February); we are having some decorating work undertaken, and so we are not sure how this will impact on what we can get out. There should not be too many problems as quite a lot is done late into the evening, but, there may be less being put out next week, the first February week.

We are having a new wall mural produced and we are sure it will be pretty amazing – pictures of it to be shown on this site when all is finished on 5/2/16. All we will say for now is that it is ‘animal related’; naturally.

We will get more posts out in these last few days of January, so please keep visiting us and keep acting on behalf of all the animals who are relying on us to be their voice where it matters.

We join with Danica and the cats in thanking everyone who has donated to get the new tank of gas and for helping to keep all the kitties warm.

So thank you for giving – SAV.

28/1/16:

Dear friends,

We’re overjoyed to announce that gas has finally arrived!

Our central heating has already kicked into high gear and most of the kitties are quickly occupying their usual sleeping places on top of the radiators 🙂

Those who prefer to stay in their warm and cozy cat beds change their positions from all curled up to stretched out or bent over backwards, although the very best of friends still prefer to snuggle together in their sleep.

Now that the cats’ rooms and the house are warm it can snow all it wants, we just don’t care!

There are no words to describe our most profound thanks and appreciation to all of you for your help!

A simple thank you is not enough for all that amazing Laura Simpson, her awesome organization The Great Animal Rescue Chase & Harmony Fund and each one of you have given us.

All we can say is that we’re blessed to have such caring, thoughtful and wonderful friends 🙂

Dear Mark,

This new video shows the true impact of ordering a driftnet-caught swordfish at a restaurant, and encourages each of us to make smart seafood choices. Together we call say ‘no thank you’ to California driftnet caught high-in-mercury swordfish that comes with unwanted sides of sea turtles, dolphins, sharks, whales, and other marine wildlife.

The California’s driftnet fishery consists of a small fleet of roughly 20 active vessels that set nets the size of the Golden Gate Bridge to drift unattended through our oceans. While the primary targeted commercial species for this fishery are swordfish and shark, these nets entangle everything in their mile-wide path, resulting in high levels of bycatch (unintended catch, most thrown overboard dead or injured). Over the past ten years, nearly a thousand air-breathing whales, dolphins, and sea turtles have drowned, while thousands of sharks (that depend on constant movement) have suffocated.

Turtle Island is committed to phasing out this fishery that is harmful for marine wildlife and our health, and our video educates and empowers consumers and restaurants on the deadly California driftnet fishery for swordfish.

We’d love to have your help getting the word out about this important issue.Please post the following message on Facebook: